Chapter Text
“Welcome back from commercial break! Thank you for sticking with us through the wait, we'll be sure not to disappoint on this special segment of Kiss and Tell!" Black Sapphire Cookie crowed, beaming into the camera. His chat flew by on his second monitor.
"I see a lot of first time chatters, welcome! You picked a perfect time to tune in, I have some exclusive gossip to share! If you're new here, Kiss and Tell is a segment where viewers can email in rumors, gossip, and stories of the latest relationships in Earthbread! As always, I'm joined by my dear friend and expert in relationships, Pavlova Cookie!"
"I can't wait for today's headline! You're all gonna love it!" Pavlova Cookie sang over the Crispcord call.
"Indeed, tonight's news will surely shock many of you! Especially our viewers from the Vanilla Kingdom," Black Sapphire said. "Tell me Pavlova Cookie, what do you know about Pure Vanilla Cookie?"
“Ah, my heart aches on his behalf! Royalty is such a lonely position!" Pavlova cried. "So worried about the happiness of their citizens, their own hearts are empty and void!"
"That might not be the case after all with our dear king." Black Sapphire switched over to the scene where a photo he snuck out and snapped was waiting. Pure Vanilla was on his way back from the spire last night, beaming and holding the Shadow Milk plushie tight. Even though Pure Vanilla Cookie had said that he wasn’t trying to be secretive, it could easily be taken for him trying to sneak about. And that's exactly what Black Sapphire intended, and what chat was assuming.
Pavlova Cookie gasped, though it was only the hollow shell of a gasp that was carried over the call. Curse the limitations of audio technology. “Oh my! Such secretive attire! Was he, maybe… visiting a secret lover in the middle of the night?!”
“Well, I was going to keep this a secret, buyer’s confidentiality and all, but I must come forward and say it was even better than that,” Black Sapphire Cookie admitted with a smirk. “You see, DeceitBeast’s plushie sales went live last night on his stream. They sold out amazingly quickly!”
“Ah, yes! How soon until they restock?” Pavlova Cookie blurted out.
If he were a lesser cookie, it might have taken Black Sapphire Cookie by surprise. But the master of this show knew how to keep up perfectly. “We don’t have an exact date yet, but we’re thinking a few months,” Black Sapphire replied easily. “I know a lot of cookies were disappointed at how quickly they sold out, and one of those cookies was Pure Vanilla Cookie himself.”
Pavlova Cookie gasped. “But he’s holding one in the photo! How did he get it?”
“Well, I know Master Shadow Milk Cookie had one extra, the one that was on his desk to promote the sales. Pure Vanilla Cookie came by personally in the middle of the night, pleading for a plushie. Promising anything.”
“No!”
“Yes! It was then that I was sent away, but as you can see in this photo, it appears he got what he wanted.” Black Sapphire hummed and drummed his nails on his desk. “What do you think?”
“It’s full of yearning!” Pavlova declared boldly. “Why would he be so secretive of it? He loves to be friends with everyone, but he’s acting like visiting a friend in the middle of the night is odd? On top of promising anything?!” He giggled, the telltale static noise in the background of his wings fluttering. “I almost can’t stand it!”
Black Sapphire glanced at his chat with a smirk, seeing the amount of screaming happening. Excited and fire emotes were flying by amid the screams. “Pretty pathetic, don’t you think? A king, begging in the middle of the night for a doll.”
“What do you think he gave for it?”
“I can’t even begin to imagine. I know the boss is quite generous, maybe it was just for a few extra crystals.”
“Well, with that wording…” Pavlova mused, another small laugh escaping him. “I mean, it sounds pretty bad!”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Black Sapphire asked. He grinned wider. He could work with this. “Why do you think Pure Vanilla Cookie visited at night, after all?”
“Oh I just love it! Did your boss say what he paid?”
“It’s not my place to ask. But when I gave him his tea this morning, the doll was gone from his desk.”
Pavlova Cookie gasped. “So the doll in the photo…!”
“Exactly.”
The chat was exploding, everyone dancing at his beck and call. By the end of the day, social media would be flooded with posts about it. He knew Candy Apple was already hard at work, posting on all of the alternate accounts owned by the spire across all platforms. Different disguises online, able to be switched at the click of a button.
Disguises that were believed by hundreds and sometimes thousands, and anything they said would be taken at face value in the audience. The rumors would spread like wildfire, and it’d be delicious.
Today was a beautiful day. It almost always was a beautiful day in the Vanilla Kingdom, but to Pure Vanilla, every day that he woke up and the Vanilla Kingdom wasn't in shambles was a day worth celebrating. The Fairy Kingdom's way of celebrating and partying must have rubbed off on him during his time in Beast Yeast.
Since it was such a nice day, he spent some extra time with the birds outside of his castle, giving each one of them a small pat as they fluttered up onto his knee. He brought his JamPad outside with him and turned it on, waiting for the notifications to be read out.
“CookieTube: PreciousPavlovaFan556 has followed you.”
“CookieTube: melondew0y has followed you.”
“CookieTube: cdfjuicer43 has followed you.”
“CookieTube—“
How many of these were there? Was this going to be like this every day? Pure Vanilla certainly hoped not. It was great that so many cookies were following him, but Pure Vanilla got worried that he wouldn’t remember every single one. He already forgot the names of the first few read out.
After several minutes of the same repetitive notification with the only difference being the username, the JamPad announced the end of the notifications. Pure Vanilla was pretty sure he didn’t hear a notification that Shadow Milk Cookie had gone live yet today. He hadn’t gone live yet yesterday either. Maybe Shadow Milk was taking a few days off, or he was too busy packing up and shipping out all of the doll orders.
He opened up CookieTube to make sure, and it confirmed that the last stream was still only the one where he announced the plushie orders a couple days ago.
A raisin crow called nearby, startling him out of his thoughts.
"I should've known you'd be here," Black Raisin Cookie said. She sat down next to Pure Vanilla on the bench, a crow perching on her knee for a small scratch on the head.
"Good afternoon, Black Raisin Cookie. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Pure Vanilla replied with a bright smile as he set his JamPad aside. He silently thanked his lucky stars that it was done reading the notifications before Black Raisin was within earshot. Some of the usernames were something else. What kind of a cookie names their account PavlovaToeLicker39?
"Not a pleasure this time," Black Raisin Cookie said with a heavy sigh. "Cookies are angry, especially the west end shopkeepers. Their sales are hurting, and they’re worried they can’t make rent. Nobody wants to visit that part of town anymore because of that tower."
“Shadow Milk Cookie’s spire?”
“That same one. I’ve been keeping an eye on it like you asked, but I haven’t seen much activity from him. Hell, I’ve barely seen him leave. I see the other two come and go a lot, though.”
That worried Pure Vanilla, and he frowned as he weighed the possibilities. “That’s not good for him to stay cooped up all day. I wonder if I should invite him out on a walk?”
Black Raisin cast a side eye at him. "Are you sure having him here is still a good idea? Crime has been up since he's arrived. Petty theft cases, but cookies aren't suspecting him or his minions. They're suspecting their neighbors, friends, family..." She heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed her forehead. "That's not even getting into the rumors flying around. Every time I turn around there's a new one. Cookies are on edge, nobody knows what to believe anymore. I get you want to help him, but is it really worth all of this?"
Pure Vanilla frowned, his fingers curling into his robes as he thought over the question. "Yes, I think it is. It hasn’t even been a month. It hasn't been long enough to make a certain answer yet."
Black Raisin stayed silent for several beats. The beautiful day now seemed at odds with how heavy the air was. Finally, she sighed and stood from the bench. "Even if there’s rumors about you too?”
Pure Vanilla couldn’t find it in himself to act surprised. In fact, he couldn’t hide the smile that tugged at his lips. “Let me guess, a rumor that I secretly crawled to Shadow Milk Cookie’s tower in the dead of night, crying and begging because I wanted a silly little doll of my worst enemy?”
“Uh…something like that,” Black Raisin said. “Did that actually…?”
“As with most of Shadow Milk Cookie’s lies, there’s a drop of truth to them. I did go to his tower the other night and asked politely for one of the dolls he was selling that resembled himself,” Pure Vanilla explained. “He gave it to me for free. He said it would make for a funny rumor to spread.”
“That’s why you weren’t surprised. Well, if you already know, that’s all the business I wanted to report.”
Pure Vanilla could tell that there was something more she wanted to say, but Black Raisin placed a wrapped package in Pure Vanilla’s lap instead of elaborating.
“Here, from the villagers,” she said simply. “They said they really liked your last stream.” She paused, deliberating for a moment, but then chuckled. “I even heard someone say they wanted to hear you say you’re proud of them. You didn’t hear that from me though.”
“Oh! I’ll make sure to say that when I stream next.” Pure Vanilla paused, and turned more properly to Black Raisin Cookie so he could rest his free hand on her shoulder. “I’m especially proud of you, Black Raisin Cookie. Thank you so much for all of the hard work you do to keep everyone safe.”
“Huh? I wasn’t the one—“ She cleared her throat, poorly holding back a smile. “Well, I swore to keep everyone safe back at the village, and I still maintain that oath today. Which reminds me, I gotta head back and continue my patrols now.”
“Yes, and I have a delicious lunch to eat,” Pure Vanilla agreed as he stood with his lunch and JamPad held securely in his free arm. “Have a wonderful day now. Tell the others that I plan to stream today.”
“Good luck.” Black Raisin Cookie turned and left, though there was a tenseness in her shoulders as she left.
Pure Vanilla couldn’t help but think over her words. He hoped he could convince Shadow Milk Cookie to ease up on the petty theft and rumors, at least enough to ease Black Raisin’s stress a little. He understood that it was what they were used to, but that wasn’t how cookies in the Vanilla Kingdom acted. That wasn’t how they needed to act anymore.
He navigated up to his chambers, smiling when he saw the Shadow Milk plushie slumped against the pillows on his bed. Every time it’s left his sight, he’s wondered if this would be the time Shadow Milk took the plushie back. Pure Vanilla was grateful it was still here.
He set his lunch and JamPad down on his desk, pausing when he saw his headphones. They had been left on their stand in front of the chair, so Pure Vanilla hadn’t seen them until now. No wonder Shadow Milk mentioned Pure Vanilla stealing his “look” during the stream the other night. Pure Vanilla’s headphones were now a cream color, with two glowing cat ears on top. He left the desk for a moment to grab the doll off of the bed, and then sat down in his chair.
He propped his staff up in the same way he did last time, or at least as close as he could get to it, and set the plushie down in his lap.
Holding the headphones up to inspect them, Pure Vanilla noted they were almost the same as Shadow Milk’s headphones from what he could tell. The most obvious difference being the color. At first he thought Shadow Milk Cookie had completely changed his headphones, but when Pure Vanilla put them on, he realized with a relieved sigh that it was only the color and addition of cat ears that changed. The headphones still had the buttons and power switch in the same places, and still fit the same on his head.
As he clicked on the icon to open his broadcasting program, he wondered a half second before the program opened if the icon was different. He didn’t have time to think on it before he received his answer. A program he didn’t recognize popped up and scattered the screen with several windows, and he couldn’t find it within himself to be surprised.
If anything, he was surprised that the program Shadow Milk Cookie installed on his computer looked like it was another broadcasting software and not some joke program. Was this what Shadow Milk used to stream? Maybe it would be worth looking into and learning instead. As soon as he figured out what it was actually called.
After some searching, he had found what he could only assume was the main window and he was able to look up the name of it.
He had no idea how much time he wasted skipping through videos claiming to be guides only to have something completely different displayed. It took him several of these videos to figure out his program was supposed to look like the example in the countless other videos.
Pure Vanilla ended up choosing a video that claimed to be a complete guide to everything he needed to know about this new program. He was thankful it was split into chapters with a helpful list on the side of the screen. He wasn’t sure if he was going to get all of this done tonight.
He especially was not going to be able to stream tonight, that much was certain. He wondered if he should let the villagers know, but then shook his head and resumed the video. He would stop by the inn for dinner, that way he could thank them for lunch in person, and apologize for not streaming when he promised.
At least the video guided him through resetting the appearance of the program and its many windows back to how the example looked. It truly was a complete guide.
He had managed to get twenty minutes into the two hour video, though the amount of time he had actually been spending on this likely was much more. It was fascinating, but difficult to follow at times. At least with a video, he could rewind parts and have something repeated without troubling someone.
Pure Vanilla Cookie was starting to get into a rhythm, focusing on the work, when loud music blared in his headphones and nearly startled him out of his dough. Quelling his racing anxiety, he lowered his computer’s sound and took a couple deep breaths.
He recognized the music after a moment. Music that sounded more like something he’d hear in a circus. Shadow Milk’s stream had started in the background, a tab in his browser he kept open permanently.
A moment of adjusting some audio levels later, he was able to keep an eye on the stream while still following along with the video guide. He felt a burst of pride for how easily he was starting to learn how to navigate these things. He felt old sometimes, and other times he was cruelly reminded of how out of touch with modern society he was, but as long as he could still learn, he would be alright.
“Welcome, welcome! Oh it’s always so good to see everyone! So eager for me, I see we have quite the crowd today and I haven’t even started yet!”
Something in his chest warmed as Shadow Milk Cookie’s voice cut through the video presentation. He hadn’t thought of it before, but it was nice to know he’d have some company while he worked on fixing the mess of his own stream. Even if that company was Shadow Milk Cookie himself, the one who caused the mess in the first place.
Pure Vanilla thought briefly about saying hello to him, but after looking back at the tab where the chat flew by too fast for him to read, he thought better of it. He was alright with just listening, Shadow Milk Cookie was a fantastic performer and did not need much input from the audience. Constantly launching into stories one after another, chattering on about whatever was on his mind.
There was never a shortage of things on Shadow Milk’s mind, going from perfectly normal one moment, launching into a whimsical tale the next moment, and in another moment spiraling into something dark and twisted that no sane cookie would have ever thought of, much less say out loud.
Once, it terrified Pure Vanilla Cookie. Now, it was simply one of Shadow Milk Cookie’s mannerisms that he had grown to know and accept as part of his friendship. It also made for excellent entertainment while he finally dug into the delicious lunch prepared for him.
The lunch had gone cold now, if it was ever warm to begin with, but it was still delicious as always. They had even included a raisin bun, and biting into it Pure Vanilla noted with delight that they added extra raisins to it for him. How kind, he’d have to make sure he streamed tomorrow for them for sure. He hoped they still enjoyed it, even if it was a day later than he promised.
Once he finished his lunch, he focused once more on setting up his stream with renewed vigor. Shadow Milk’s chattering faded to the background. Pure Vanilla didn’t know how long he was working, but the video was a little over halfway finished when he was shocked back into reality by hearing his name.
“Oh, Pure Vanilla Cookie? Wellllll, I was trying to keep it a secret! As Black Sapphire Cookie put it, buyer’s confidentiality! But yes, he did indeed visit my tower the other night, begging and pleading for the sample I had made to show off to all of you! It was all for the better anyways, it would be so cruel of me to keep that sample on my desk to tease all of you when it was sold out so quickly, wouldn’t it? I am nothing if not benevolent, so I let him buy it!”
So that’s how he was spinning it. Well, that wasn’t so bad. It was a little odd for Black Raisin Cookie to have brought it up, if it was something as mild at that.
“Did he— WHAT?!”
The indignant screech from Shadow Milk Cookie sent Pure Vanilla reeling and scrambling to try to find the message that made him react in such a way, but the chat was moving too fast. A lot of similar messages and laughing emojis flew by at the speed of light as Shadow Milk Cookie sat stunned in the corner of his stream. It was rare to see him genuinely sent off balance. Pure Vanilla made a note to ask him later what it was that was asked.
Unfortunately, the look was gone as fast as it appeared, replaced with a wide grin that looked almost a little too strained at the corners.
“Well, who’s to say? Only I and Pure Vanilla Cookie know what was paid that night in exchange for the toy, hehe…”
The few messages that Pure Vanilla could catch on the screen confirmed what he was wondering before he could focus and make sure his limited vision wasn’t deceiving him.
[JellyBellyBear: BLUSHING???]
[jammycrazed: AYO]
[CakehoundLover666: what]
[ajaddack11: HUHHH]
[sugarblox35: THE BLUSH HELLO??????????????????]
[TryPie: hes not denying it]
[CrazyCrumbler4eva: Am I seeing things or is he blushing I’m on mobile I can’t tell]
[BissoBiscuit: @CrazyCrumbler4eva 100%]
[ShadowMilksFavorite: YOU’RE ALL SEEING THINGS]
[zsrcookie: theres no way]
[DeceitStan2299: u guys r delusional]
[TryPie: @ShadowMilksFavorite hes definitely blushing lmao]
[SprinkleQueen: get ur eyes checked]
Yet even with the massive amounts of messages that even Pure Vanilla could barely keep up with, Shadow Milk continued on. He must not have seen them. Or they were wrong, and Shadow Milk wasn’t blushing after all? It was truly hard to tell, and Pure Vanilla didn’t want to give himself a headache straining himself trying to see for certain.
“But oh, you should have really seen the look on his face, dear audience! So pleading and sad, you would have thought I was holding his favorite sheep for captive! I tried to tell him no, but he looked as if he was about to cry! How odd, for a king to cry over not being given a doll, hmm? And you all listen to his orders?”
Back to business as usual then. Pure Vanilla sighed, though he couldn’t help but chuckle a little at how outrageous Shadow Milk’s story was. Luckily, he knew the way that cookies worked, including Shadow Milk. No matter how tempting the rumor, how dramatic a story was framed, it would be swept under the rug in a week. A month at most. With how much was happening lately, it was nearly impossible for cookies to stay hung up on a single topic for very long.
Not to mention, Shadow Milk and his minions would get bored of talking about the same rumor repeatedly. Shadow Milk was constantly flitting back and forth between subjects, looking for more and more misinformation to spread. If Pure Vanilla didn’t react, then Shadow Milk would simply find something else to amuse himself with.
Pure Vanilla clicked back on the video guide, realizing it had been still going that entire time. He hadn’t even heard it in the background, so focused on trying to figure out what had prompted such a reaction from Shadow Milk Cookie. He had to rewind it quite a bit to find where he was before.
It took another couple of hours, but Pure Vanilla had done everything the guide told him to set up, along with the other things he had set up for his own needs. Hopefully, everything was set up and ready for him to go live again, and he shouldn’t have any troubles.
With how long it took to set up everything again however, it was late. He should go visit the inn and thank the villager cookies there for the lovely lunch and apologize for not streaming tonight like Black Raisin Cookie had surely told them.
He spared one last glance at Shadow Milk Cookie’s stream, where he was playing some sort of shooter game. The insults he fired off at the enemies were quite creative, as if he was fighting against other cookies. Maybe he was? Pure Vanilla had heard the trio of Cookie Kingdom rulers talk about such games, where the enemies were actually real cookies controlling their own characters. It sounded terribly complex, but fascinating. He added it to his mental list of things to ask Shadow Milk about next time they met.
With a sigh, he set his headphones back on their stand and stood up with the plushie in one arm and his staff in his other hand. He set the plushie back down at the head of his bed and gave it a small pat.
“Thank you for accompanying me, it’s always easier to work on something when a friend is present,” he said to the doll. A soft giggle fell from him at the realization of his own silliness, but he remembered what Black Raisin had said to him earlier and it gave him an idea. He grabbed a notepad and pen and stuck them in the pocket of his robes.
He wouldn’t say that Black Raisin had told him their wishes, but he could innocently ask the villager cookies if there was anything specific he should talk about on stream. Hopefully they would tell him exactly what they wanted to hear, and he would be able to repeat it on his livestream tomorrow.
Once more, the excitement of streaming again bubbled up within him. Especially with all of the new friends that had subscribed to his channel, it would be so fun to greet all of them and thank them personally for joining.
He couldn’t wait.